


Tuesday

by merlin



Category: Suits (TV), White Collar
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 08:46:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merlin/pseuds/merlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The three of them soon come to rule over Tuesday, and they are there when Mike Ross walks in to ask about the hiring notice on the wall. [college coffee shop crossover AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tuesday

Neal Caffrey is the top student in the college’s fine arts programme; his paintings are abstract at best and incomprehensible messes at worst, and each one sells for five digit figures or more. He flits in and out of majors, excelling in everything he touches, be it glass or ceramics or metal or printmaking or even writing thousands of words on Renaissance art, and professors aren’t sure whether to hate him or to get his autograph.  
  
Neal has two best friends: Moz and El. Nobody knows Mozzie’s real name, and he would like to keep it that way, thank you very much. He works at the coffee joint tucked under the sweeping staircase of the college building, and draws incredible chalk patterns made out of mathematical formulas on the massive wall painted to be his personal blackboard canvas. Mozzie could and would have been accepted to the school’s programme, except for the fact that he eschews the establishment of higher education and all the brainwashing that it inevitably causes. He puts his skills towards his chalkboard fractals and his coffee instead.  
  
Elizabeth and Neal met on their first day of college. It went something like this:  
  
“Hi, I’m Neal. I’m a painting major.”  
  
“I’m El, and I’m in arts management.”  
  
They had shaken hands, shared a box of charcoal and a pad of paper, bought each other coffee, and had been inseparable ever since. That is, until one Peter Burke stumbled into the studio two years later, plastic ballpoints and neatly ruled notepaper marking him out immediately as someone taking an elective module, and his hopeless drawings immediately endearing him to El, who could never resist a man whose first attempt at flirting was the sentence “oh my god are you the model today? I would really love to draw you.”  
  
The three of them soon come to rule over Tuesday, which is what Mozzie’s coffee shop is called - “because I’m closed on Wednesdays,” was his reply when asked about it - and they are there when Mike Ross walks in to ask about the hiring notice on the wall. Neal had pasted it there two weeks ago when Mozzie complained about regulations and multi-tasking and corporate busybodies, and everyone is surprised that anyone would even take up the job, seeing as how Mozzie had certainly never needed help before. Peter often finds himself wondering how; Tuesday is anything but quiet, with hungover illustrators dragging themselves in at all hours of the day for triple-shot-soy-hold-the-whip-double-the-sugar-vanilla-caramel-lattes. But when asked, Mozzie just squints suspiciously at Peter, mutters something about infiltration of the bourgeois academics, and never answers.  
  
Nevertheless, Mike Ross passes the interview with flying colours after two hours of gruelling questions, an on-the-spot practical test involving three types of flavouring and a mysterious lack of shot glasses, and an epic recital of the entirety of the United States Constitution. Mozzie is pleased; Neal is terrified.  
  
Mike turns out to be an incredibly fun person to talk to, and Neal often finds himself gravitating towards the counter, away from Peter and El making eyes at each other over black coffee, two sugars, and discussing the finer points of Raphael versus Michelangelo while Mike foams milk and Mozzie yells his opinion from the blenders.  
  
Tuesday begins to see several new regulars, including Peter’s friend Diana and her girlfriend Christie, a music professor named June who leaves incredible tips, and a handful of guys in suits that probably cost more than what Mike makes in a month at Tuesday. El does some reconnaissance and finds out that they are law students from across campus, which makes Mozzie foam at the mouth with impotent rage. “Don’t they have their own scheming little cafe?” he spits, referring to the swanky joint that takes up an entire glass building in the law school quad, run by a man named Matthew Keller that Neal and Mozzie both loathe. Tuesday has scuffed wooden chairs, a worn mosaic floor, and more scarves per customer than there should be.  
  
One of the lawyer hopefuls is called Harvey, and he has the most ridiculous coffee order ever; Mozzie gives him the stink-eye the first time he tries to order it, and makes Mike take over. Fifteen minutes later, Harvey has left, Mike has twenty dollars in tips, and the empty paper cup on Harvey’s vacated table has a phone number written on it.


End file.
